MultiDonity
by Donnie-o
Summary: Donatello may sometimes desperately wish he could make multiples of himself, but even a brilliant idea like that has its drawbacks.
1. What's This?

_Disclaimer: I Don't own TMNT, I Don't own Multiplicity. I'm just the nut job that likes to write… don't sue me please!!_

_Author's Note: Have any of you seen Multiplicity?? I haven't. But I've seen snippets, and my little sis practically threw this plot bunny at my face!! I still have the bruise to prove it! Needless to say… I'm going to write it, and none of you can stop me!! buahhahahaha Here goes nothin! A Multiplicity parody!_

_**Multi-Donity**_

_**Chapter One – What is This?**_

I walked back from the kitchen to my worktable, a refrigerated slice of pizza in my hands that I hadn't wanted to take the time to warm up. As I sat down, I realized that I had no place to put my snack, my worktable being completely buried underneath my current project: replenishing my supply of electric-shock shurikans. I was running low.

Shrugging, I shoved the entire slice of cold pizza in my mouth, trying to get back to work as soon as possible. I hated it when my stomach interrupted my projects with its grumblings. While I chewed, my eyes traveled to where Michelangelo sat, on a chair with his ipod headphones firmly snuggled around his ears, and a sour expression on his face.

One glance at the monolith television screen told me why. Casey Jones had come over, and he and Raph had turned the television onto a wrestling channel. Currently they were shouting at their favorite player, the Boulder. They looked like they wanted to wrestle the opponent themselves, and sometimes they would stand up and full-out yell at the TV screen. It was no wonder that Mikey had wanted to escape.

After I'd scarfed, I picked up the shurikan I had been hardwiring to shock upon impact, adding a few adjustments with my tweezers, underneath my hands-free magnifying glass. The minutes passed by, with me happily tinkering away. The shurikan would be ready for the soldering torch soon…

Suddenly a flash of orange cut through my thoughts; Michelangelo dodged behind me and underneath my worktable.

"Donnie, if anyone asks, I was not here, you didn't see me, and no I don't have the remote." He commanded.

"Uh… ok… what're you doing with the remote?" I asked, peering underneath the table. Michelangelo crouched underneath—watching for his adversaries with a wild eye—cradling the remote in his arms as gently as he would a newborn babe.

"Don't look at me!! Just… work on whatever it is that you were working on!"

I snapped my head back to its original position.

"Okaaay…" I asked, without looking underneath the table. "What's going on, Mikey?"

Michelangelo supplied, "That wrestling was driving me insane! Seriously, I think is totally disgusting to watch the way those two yell at the opponents. It's like they want to jump through the screen, and eat them alive."

I smiled, "Sort of like how it's totally disgusting to watch you eat pizza? You eat your opponents alive."

"Hardy har," Michelangelo retorted, "But I'm gonna let you off the hook for that one today, Donnie-boy, because you in your techno-geek wisdom made it so that the TV could only be worked by remote. That was the only way I could change the channel, and make it so that they couldn't change it back!"

I furrowed by eyebrow ridges. "You snuck the channel changer? How—?"

Michelangelo chuckled, "Because I am the stealth master!" When I sent an unimpressed look his way, he added, "Aaaaand Raphael is completely oblivious when he watches wrestling. I just slid my arm around the side of the couch and swiped it, and changed the channel behind the post. They were too busy trying to figure out what happened to even look around for me."

I looked over towards the 'living room' and chuckled as I noticed that Michelangelo had turned the channel to some how-to-knit program. Raphael and Casey both frantically looked underneath the couch and the couch cushions. I faintly heard, "It's gotta be around here somewhere." And "Case, you were sittin' on it. That's what happened. It's gotta be under here."

Soon the search spread to the entire living room area. I continued to work, suppressing a mischievous smile when I thought either Casey or Raphael was looking our way. I actually got four or five more shurikans completed before Michelangelo felt it safe to speak and start to complain about how his stomach was starting to growl at him. He obviously meant that he wanted me to get him some pizza.

I told him no way, and that he'd been the one to get himself in this problem in the first place. It was his problem to get himself out of it.

Really though, I think Michelangelo saved everyone's sanity from an early demise. The way those two watched wrestling… I gave an involuntary shudder. Michelangelo may be a goofball, but he's a smart goofball sometimes.

However, having the remote here in my lab while they vengefully looked for him was a recipe for disaster, and I knew it.

That's why I quietly gathered up my project. While Raphael and Casey searched for the clicker-thieving orange banded brother hiding quietly underneath the table, I carefully put away my breakable glass items, stored any liquids in my cupboards, hid any scatterable, yet extremely important paperwork, and quietly shielded my computer system with a blockade of boxes intended precisely for this job.

Then I walked out of my lab, just as a resounding "MIKEY!!" split across the room by two furious hot-heads, who made a lightning-fast beeline for my lab.

I sighed.

_Now all I have to do is wait it out._

I headed toward the kitchen for some more pizza.

* * *

"Donnie!" Moaned a certain now black-and-blue brother. "It stings!"

I rolled my eyes, and persisted in wiping a gash on Michelangelo's arm with a gloved hand brandishing an alcohol wipe. "Can't you guys just rough-house somewhere where there aren't any hard, and breakable objects? Like… the ocean?"

Mikey narrowed his eyes. He must have been wondering whether or not I had actually just told him to go jump in the ocean. He flinched in pain as I neared a certain part of the gash that was deeper than the rest. As much as he hated to admit it, I could tell he knew that I was right about rough-housing with hard objects. The table hadn't much liked him running into it, apparently, and its sharp edge had gouged him one good.

Or maybe it was because he accidentally broke one of the legs off of it.

"Just be careful, Don!" He reproached, as my inquiring fingers prodded the underneath the skin for any splinters that might have become lodged underneath.

"Aw, stop bein' such a friggin' baby!" Came a harsh voice from the left. Raphael was next in line for 'Dr. Don,' holding a hand above his left eye. I knew it would probably discolor once this was over; I'm pretty sure he gave himself a concussion.

Needless to say, Splinter would not be pleased.

April hadn't been either. She'd taken Casey home pretty much by the scruff of the neck, muttering under her breath about how childish he had been behaving, and that he probably couldn't feel his cuts that needed taken care of because of his thick head, and more things that probably should not be mentioned.

"Yo Donnie!" Leonardo had just walked in the room, and he held a book in his hand: The Art of War by Sun Tsu. It had fallen out of its old leather cover, and the binding had just disintegrated as well, and the pages were scattering everywhere.

"Just a minute Leo…" I muttered. Currently both my hands were finishing the wrappings on Mikey's arm.

Raphael sighed, "Don all I did was run into a wall. Just show me where you keep the ice-packs, and I'll just—"

I grabbed him by the shoulder, and forcefully turned him around. "No you don't, I don't need you making things worse. Just sit down, and shush."

Raphael rolled his eyes, regretting it after feeling pain in his left eye. I knew what he was thinking, because he'd been saying it to me for as long as I could remember. '_For cryin' out loud, Don, just say 'shut up.'_' He merely sighed, and let me shine a penlight in his eyes. It obviously bothered him when I softened something that I had 'obviously' meant to be harsh.

I didn't like what I was seeing.

"Are you dizzy?"

"No…"

I looked at him sternly.

He confessed. "A little…"

"Do you have blurred vision?"

"Maybe…"

"Raph, you've given yourself a concussion." Came my diagnosis.

"Not like it's the first time…" Raph muttered, angry all the same. He knew what I was going to say next.

"Okay, you've officially been couched for the next couple of hours. No falling asleep. Ice it for twenty-thirty minutes every couple of hours."

"Does it count as sleeping if I'm—"

"Yes." I shoved Raph in the direction of the couch, without having to hear the rest of it. 'Just resting my eyeballs' had never fooled anybody.

Leo was still standing there with the broken book. "Hey Don, you wouldn't happen to be able to put this together without tape, would you?"

I smirked, "Do you really have to ask that?"

Leo gave me a hearty slap on the back. "Thanks Don." He left the gutted book in a pile on my broken lab table.

Leaning back in my chair, I made a mental check-off list.

1. _Fix my table_

_2. Bind Leo's book_

_3. Build a stun-gun for any miscreants that want to rough-house in my lab again._

I sighed, and told my broken table. "Sometimes I just wish I had two or three of me running around here to put out the fires so that I can focus on other things for a change."

My table just sat there.

I needed to seriously 'tech' out some of my frustrations, but first I knew I needed a relaxing visit to the web, just to surf. De-barricading my computer, I opened up the internet.

Then, just for fun, I typed the web address for Then I typed in the search engine 'cloning.'

Just for fun.

* * *

Shuffling through the items at the dump, I sighed. Yesterday had been a long day. I had several more fires to put out, which included un-bending the hinges to the bathroom door, because some big-foot who shall remain nameless broke the door down because a certain younger brother hid there with the door locked, after having drawn bushy eyebrows onto his older brother in 'punishment' for falling asleep when he'd been specifically told not to. Then it was off to the toaster, because Leo had stepped foot into the kitchen again. For some reason, and to his dismay, everything seems to always break on him whenever he tried to use it. Which reminded me that I had yet to fix his book. It didn't take long to come up with some metal binding, and re-attaching the cover to it. From there I worked on the Battle Shell's homing system, because Mikey tried to mess with it, then I fixed Sensei's door, because it wouldn't open correctly, and then we got a plumbing leak from Mikey's and Raph's battle in the bathroom, which resulted in more bruises and cuts—and some extra house-chores for two brothers who had way to much time on their hands, which made me happy—and…

Well, by then I found myself thinking desperately about that stun-gun idea.

This morning felt a little different to me. You know, when there was something in the air that made you feel excited, except you didn't know why, and so you spend the rest of the day in anticipation to find out what it is that you can't figure out why you are excited about. I had actually come into my lab after morning practice to find that my table had been repaired, and a whole pizza sitting on top of it. The pepperoni slices spelled out: 'I'm sorry.'

That must have been Michelangelo.

At least he appreciated all the work that I did. Even if he was the one that created most of it.

I decided that a trip to the dump was in order that evening. Besides being able to find some cool stuff sometimes, it was a good way to find some time alone. I did need to find another hard drive, so that I could use the extra space. I was running out.

As expected, I did find stuff that I could use: some good wires that I could use for pretty much do any hardwiring that I might need to do. Some glass bottles that I could use for beakers, once I had written some measurements on them. Someone had actually thrown out an old computer, and I smurfed the hardrive from it. That was lucky. I could hook it up as a slave to my hard-drive.

Then I spotted something very odd.

It was a brown leather briefcase. It stuck out like a sore thumb, because amidst all the old, battered, soiled, and mucky trash, it shone bright and new. I walked forward, and at a closer inspection, the leather didn't even appear to have any scratches on it of any kind. The gold latches gleamed in the dying sunlight. No tarnish. In fact, the thing looked brand new.

"Oh man, who would have thrown away something like _this_?" I questioned aloud, picking it up and feeling the leather with my fingers. It was real leather. Some people just bugged me. What kind of weirdo would send something this expensive—_real _leather—to the dump?

As I turned it over in my hand, I felt something shift slightly. Curious, I opened it up.

"What the…?" I said, unsure of what it was I saw inside.

Tucked inside foam padding was a round, smooth boulder-looking thing that had a black surface. Except it was lighter than an actual rock. It almost looked like the ridiculous 'flying saucers' you would see in those old black-and-white TV shows back in the sixties. I couldn't see any markings on the top of the rounded surface, and no imprints of any kind. It had a manufactured look, man-made. Electronic. It looked as though it hadn't seen any use whatsoever.

Of course, that didn't mean it hadn't been used at all. I had no clue what it could be, and I was almost afraid of touching it. What if I triggered something to activate without even realizing it?

Closing the briefcase once again, I looked around for any kind of identification that I could find. At the very bottom, I found it. A small identification number seared into the leather itself: SC236.

Rolling my eyes, I muttered, "You're going to make this difficult for me, aren't you?"

Well, I had my way around these sort of problems

Good ol' internet.

* * *

As the night progressed, I found myself more and more frustrated. There was no company in this area with the initials 'SC' that could have produced the strange item sitting in my lab. After a while, I also discovered that the ID tag was too ambiguous to even distinguish it between a small manufacturing company, to a large company. It would have to be expensive, so I ruled out the small company. However, any company indiscriminate of size could produce something like this if they had a financial backer. That's when a thought tickled my brain—a nasty little thought. What if this had nothing to do with a company at all? What if it were something more along the lines of research and science? If that were the case, my search area would have more than tripled. I couldn't count how many different groups in the science community there were.

_Hmmmm…_I thought, bringing my arms up around my head, and leaning back, staring at the briefcase with an accusing look. _I want to know what you are… I want to find your secrets. Yet you mock me. _Narrowing my eyes at my opponent, I began to think hard.

_If I'm very careful, maybe I could take a peek inside, and figure out what it is that way… as long as I don't trigger anything._

Somewhere in the back of my mind, something tickled at me, telling me to quit while I was ahead. Someone threw it away for a reason, right? Somewhere, some part of my common sense also told me that the human world seemed to be more wasteful than anything. It could have been misplaced, and ended up in the dump without the owner even realizing it was gone.

_Which would, _argued my other half of my brain,_ be dangerous to us. What if the owner wanted it back, and they came looking for it?? If they found us here…_

My other side argued back, _What are the chances that they'd be able to find this place? Practically nil, with all the security I've set up._

_Would you stake your family's lives on that claim?_

I stood, thinking that if I could just quit arguing with myself, I'd get more accomplished.

"More is lost," I muttered aloud, "by indecision than a wrong decision."

To that end, I walked up to my table, and loomed over my victim.

_It's time to party. _


	2. This is Just a Dream

_**Chapter Two – This is Just a Dream**_

Although I had planned on getting started with operation 'Device Destruction' immediately, my plans were interrupted by a sudden sense of starvation, and a very loud grumbling noise. That was when I realized that I hadn't eaten anything since before my trip to the dump. I looked at a clock I had hanging on my wall, and realized that it was way too late to start, because I would never be done before practice. Then I also realized that my head was swimming because I was tired. This made me realize four things: if I didn't want to screw everything up, I'd need sleep, a clear head on my shoulders, food in my stomach, and a stretch of time ample enough to complete my project.

With a sigh, I left the briefcase closed on my worktable, and headed upstairs to bed with the thought that although I had lost the battle of finding out the identity of the item I had found, I had not lost the war.

In the words of Raphael, it was a 'tactical retreat.'

In the morning, after practice, and after eating an ample breakfast of bacon and eggs provided by Michelangelo, I headed to my lab. I determined that unless I wanted another rumble in my lab that I'd need to figure out a way to keep everyone out.

I wrote 'Do Not Disturb' on a standard sized piece of paper in red marker, and moved to hang it outside my lab when I heard a veritable shriek too high to be anyone other than April.

"No way! Wrestling is _off_ the menu today, guys!" She said, holding the remote control high, and away from any grasping hands, standing on the back of the couch.

Casey and Raph looked like they were willing to play keep away with her for only so long before their favorite program came on: then they would have to get a little more forceful.

I sighed, thinking that if they could stay away for long enough without interrupting me, I'd be in pretty good shape. Once I'd hung my sign, I mentally began rolling up my sleeves.

I'd laid my tools out neatly on my table, beside my 'patient'—which was still inside its leather case—almost as a surgeon would before he began the operation. I needed to be able to focus on what I was doing without having to fumble for my tools. I didn't need to mess anything up. With anticipation, I picked up my forceps.

This would take skill and precision. Something that I had loads of, from practice and pure talent. I grinned. This is what I liked to do best. Take a bit of technology I knew nothing about, study it, and then find out all its secrets.

Carefully, I pulled the black thing out of its case with the forceps, cautious to avoid anything that might look like a switch. Really though, as everything on the device was smooth and seemed to be made of one solid piece of hard black plastic, or black fiberglass, I had nothing to worry about. Even after taking it out of the case, the smoothness was without any breaks or seams.

Odd… But, then again, I've seen many odd things in my life. This would not deter me. It would, however, make it a tad harder to crack.

Maybe that's what I needed to do. Just crack the sucker open—_carefully_ of course—and then when I go to put it back together, I'd just put it together in something else of my own design. I'd make it so that I could get into it without having to crack it open like an oyster. That would be overall the best course of action, I decided.

Now, how to break it open?

First I had to determine what it was made of, in order to crack it open so that I would cause the least amount of damage to it. How thick was the exterior? I examined carefully, taking a small hammer, and clicking it on the outside. It sounded solid, actually. But if that were the case, it would be a lot more heavy, wouldn't it? If it were made of fiberglass, perhaps, but plastic can be made thick without having much density to it. I couldn't heat it up, and plastic was annoyingly hard to just break. But, since I was thinking about it, if it were plastic, then it would sound hollow, just by its very nature. So it couldn't be made of plastic either.

Furrowing my eyebrow ridges, I sighed. I kept running into dead-ends with this didn't I?

I leaned closer, a magnifying glass in my hand, trying to see if the substance that made the device had a porous or smooth texture to it. I'd get to the bottom of it if it were the last thing I did!

The noise outside my lab abruptly exploded by about fifty decibels. Okay, that's an exaggeration, but it was enough to make me jump, trying not to drop my magnifying glass on the table or the floor. Swiveling around to see what all the commotion was about, I saw that Casey and Raphael were chasing Michelangelo, who once again had the remote in his hand. April was waving her arms, running off to the side of the chase, yelling "Pass it here, pass it here!"

Michelangelo jumped into the air, and threw it long. April ran and caught the thing before it hit the ground, and started running for her life as a fuming pair of wrestling-maniacs ran in frustrated anxiety to grab the remote before their program came on.

I had to chuckle. Although I knew why Casey would rather watch wrestling on our large, many-screened monolith of an entertainment system, but if they were so desperate, couldn't they just give up and crash at Casey's place to see it? Any normal person would have, but as competitive as those two get, I knew they would rather miss the program entirely if it meant that they won the right to watch it on the big screen.

Turning back to my task at hand, I grabbed my magnifying glass. Although it had a smooth surface, the material it was made of did indeed seem to be porous. As I leaned closer, finding myself becoming more and more confused with each new thing I discovered about this infernal thing, someone suddenly bumped into me with the force of a freight train. I flew off my feet, landing full on the device I had been examining.

An electric jolt ripped through my body.

I cried out with pain and surprise, as I began falling off the table. It seemed to me as if the whole world had begun to whirl in slow motion. The only thing that I could see clearly was the black, hard object falling with me to the floor. But as everything began to grow dim, I could see that it wasn't black at all. It had become pure white.

I didn't even remember landing on the floor.

* * *

Long before I could muster the energy I needed to open my eyes, I was conscious enough to be able to feel my body, and the apparent abuse it had been put through. Everything ached, and my head pounded. I could hear muffled whispering to my left. Raising an eyelid, I groaned. 

The whispers stopped.

At first, the light was too bright for my eyes, and it took a while for me to get used to the light.

It shouldn't have taken so long.

I brought my hand up to my face, and rubbed around my eyelids. My mask was missing.

Slowly but surely, things swam into my vision from the bright light. I was getting frustrated, and wished that I could just tell whoever it was that had been whispering to turn off the light for a bit, and save my pounding head from more pain than it needed. Was this what it felt like to have a hangover?

At first, I recognized the black stone-like object that had given me such a shock lying about two inches from my right side. I inched away from it. Somehow, I think that coming into physical contact with it was what set it off.

Then I could see my table, with all my lab tools on it.

April stood to my left, an odd expression on her face, almost as though she were frightened of me. Or maybe it was that she was afraid I would be angry with her because she'd knocked into me so suddenly.

I smiled, and said, "It's okay April, I'm fine. Nothing's been damaged."

Looking at the device, I said in my mind _I hope…_

She looked strangely taken aback, and her eyebrows furrowed. "You know my name?"

That was an odd question. It made me pause.

"Um… yeah?"

She walked closer to me, and looked at me with an intense gaze that made me want to start backing away slowly. Although she was probably the nicest girl on the face of this planet, in my opinion anyway, when April got an intense look on her face, she came across as a little bit scary.

"Do you know your name?"

"Um, yes. It's Don. Donatello." I began to feel a little concerned for her. "April, are you okay? You're acting really strangely."

She didn't stop with her interrogation. "What's the last thing you remember?"

I decided to humor her for a bit. _Did that shock affect her too? Maybe she has amnesia?_

"I remember tinkering with this—" I pointed at the black stone-like device that I'd found at the dump, "And I remember you knocking into me, making me bump this thing. I fell… and that's about the last thing that I remember." I looked into her face for any signs of recognition to my story. I hoped that she'd remember things about what I was saying. I'd never met anyone with amnesia before, but I was sure that it would not be fun at all.

Her face merely showed surprise.

She mumbled under her breath something about weird and being able to share memories.

I felt a little bit more concerned. I groaned, and got to my feet, and took April by the arm. "You're sure you're all right?" I put a hand on her forehead. Not hot. Well that was a good thing. "Maybe you should lie down for a while. Did you get zapped with that thing too?"

April shook her head. "I'm fine. Really. But you…" She trailed off, as if she didn't know what to say.

I felt confused all of the sudden. "What?"

She took a deep breath.

Then she pointed behind me.

"Take it easy, and look behind you."

I felt my eyes widen, and I could feel a stone drop to the pit of my stomach, and I suddenly didn't want to look behind me. But, probably due to this morbid curiosity I have sometimes, I craned my head to look behind me.

What I saw made my mouth gape open like a bass.

I saw myself. Me. Or at the very least, someone who looked exactly like me, down to the scars on my arms and legs, and the particular way I liked to wear my belt.

He stood in the doorway of my lab, a mixture of curiosity and amazement on his face, and although he looked far less flustered than I felt at the moment, I could somehow see in his eyes the incredible strangeness he must have been feeling to see a mirror image of himself, except it wasn't just an image.

A million thoughts were racing through my mind. How did this happen? Was it the stone-thing? Did that electric shock I felt have something to do with this? Is it a copy of me? Does he know who he is? What in the world am I gonna do with him? Should I tell Sensei about this? How would I possibly be able to keep him a secret?

I slowly began to walk toward him. He stiffened slightly, but he must have seen the wonder and amazement on my face because he relaxed. I wanted to examine him, and it looked like he was itching to do the same thing.

I let out a low whistle. "Man, this is strange… you look like my twin." I began walking around him. He stiffened, looking startled, yet allowed me to walk around him. "You don't look as though you're going to do anything weird. Huh." I scratched my head, starting to think out loud, muttering to myself. "It must have been when I came into contact with that device… it looks as though I've been copied. You must be my clone or something."

"No," He spoke for the first time, an indignant tone coming from his lips. "You're mine."

I stopped in my tracks.

He looked at me with a serious look, the look I knew I had on my own face when I wasn't kidding. The look that told Master Splinter or Leo that I was telling the truth. The look that everyone believed.

But I didn't believe it.

"I think you're a little confused." I told him, smiling at last, grasping onto that thought with a little more force than necessary. That _had_ to be what it was. He was just confused. "Because I'm the original. I promise you."

He blinked. Then he shook his head again, his expression not changing, which was starting to scare the heck out of me. "No. I know this sounds hard to believe, but you just appeared here… the stone started glowing… you know if it weren't for the fact that you're solid, I would have almost believed that you were a hologram, the way you just appeared here."

He suddenly got a funny grin on his face, and turned to April.

"You know, that's pretty ironic." He rubbed his head. "I half-jokingly started researching cloning just the other day. Didn't really take it very seriously though."

I looked back at April.

She had wide-eyes still, and said, "You were? Why?"

"Because—" He started, but I interrupted.

"Hey! He's not the real me! He's not Don! I'm Don!" I couldn't help it. I don't usually just make an outburst like that, but I was beginning to feel frustrated, not to mention slightly panicked.

April let a slow breath hiss out of her lips, and she stood.

"We're telling the truth. You—" She looked at a loss for words, not seeming to know how to tell me. Finally after a couple seconds she said, "Look at you, you're not wearing anything."

I looked down.

She was right; my kneepads, belt, elbow pads, and mask were all missing. I suddenly felt naked, although I had always walked around almost completely naked anyway.

But that didn't mean anything. "He could have stripped me of my gear when I was unconscious," I accused, pointing my finger at him, still feeling panicked. I was me! I couldn't be just some hologram or a clone!

April shook her head. "He didn't. I was right here the whole time.

The supposed 'real' Don nodded his head.

I looked between the two of them, starting to feel trapped.

Don said to me, "Huh, it seems you have all my memories. So you think that you're the real me. Which must mean that this thing," He pointed to the black stone device, "Not only made a genetic copy of me, but also made copies of my memory, and my personality as well."

I scrutinized him.

That made sense. But maybe he was just trying to make it make sense to me. Maybe he was trying to take over the lair, and impersonate me, and he somehow tricked April into thinking that he was right.

Then an idea popped into my head. I felt a shiver of hope give me goose bumps, and I headed toward my desk.

"What are you doing?" I heard April ask from behind me.

I smiled. "I'm going to find out the truth."

Call me paranoid, but I had set up a video monitoring system inside the lair—specifically my lab—just to be safe (and to know who to blame whenever someone wanted to steal some of my chemicals, and generally create mischief.) Blame it on living with Sensei, the world's most paranoid father. But I figured that I could disprove their claim easily.

I clicked into the monitoring system, and rewound the tape, not really paying attention until I got to the part where April banged into me.

The other two gathered around behind me, watching the screen calmly.

I pushed play.

A redhead traveling about eighty miles per hour ran into my lab, and ran into me knocking me into the thing I had been examining. Although the angle of the camera was wrong, I could see the precise shockwave of electricity that hand pounded through my body. It made me arch my back in pain, and then I fell off the table onto the floor.

_Just like I remember, _I thought, feeling a great sigh of relief wash through my body. Thank goodness for technology, because it would save me from going crazy.

I could see that the stone had turned white.

And that it also started glowing.

Taking the time to reflect that this would be a whole lot more interesting if the very basis and foundation of my life weren't being questioned by someone who had obviously stolen my identity, I couldn't help but be wowed by the very awesomeness that ensued.

The white stone began flashing in pulses. I could see April, who still had the remote in her hand run to me lying on the floor.

"Don, are you okay?" She questioned.

The me in the video began to stir, and opened his eyes groaning.

_That could still be me… _I thought, panic starting to rise again.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine." Said the me on the screen.

Slowly my eyes began to widen, as the turn of events started diverging from how I remembered them.

On the edge of the screen I could see Michelangelo appear.

"Dudette, where'd the remote go?" he asked.

April held the remote up in her hand. "Tell those two they aren't getting it back." She replied.

I could hear Raph and Casey in the background causing a ruckus behind Michelangelo. It sounded as though he were holding them back from coming in through the doorway: quite a wrestling match, apparently, signified by the huge amount of huffing and puffing by everyone.

The device began to hum.

The Don in the video quickly glanced from the device to my brothers in the doorway. He seemed to make a quick decision; quickly grabbing the remote from April, he chucked it out the door. The melee and mayhem bounded after the remote, determined to get it first. I would've done the same thing I suppose. With the way the device was acting, I wouldn't have wanted any of my brothers, or April or Casey, to get hurt. I would have wanted to contain it.

Which is precisely which the me in the video tried to do, but just before he could reach it, it made an ear-bending noise, and a flash white flash that overtook the entire screen. I squinted from the brightness of the monitor, and almost had to duck my head. After a second the noise and the brightness died away.

Another Don lay on the floor, inches beside the stone-like device, unconscious, or so it appeared.

I blinked at the screen blankly.

Although this was more than enough proof to convince me to just accept the fact that I had somehow become a clone… or hologram… or whatever, I still had one wonderful bit of denial to hold onto.

"This is a dream…" I whispered aloud.

"This is a dream…" echoed the me on the screen.

I looked up at the me standing behind me accusingly. He merely shrugged, and pointed his eyes back to the video. I did the same.

By this time, a familiar voice broke the shocked silence of April and Don on the screen. "My son, is everything all right in there?"

It was Master Splinter. Even though it was just onscreen, I could feel my heart leap into my throat. What would tell him?

The same worried expression was echoed within the faces of the two onscreen.

"Sensei!" Don called out, "Don't come in! I'm all right! Everything's fine."

"You are certain?" The voice called out.

The onscreen Don's eyes went wide, and he let out a strangled, "Yes!"

"Master Splinter," chimed in April, who hadn't moved from the spot she stood rooted to, "Everything's just great in here." Her voice sounded too cheerful. I winced.

So did the me on the screen.

'Sorry' she mouthed back to him.

Sounding unconvinced, Splinter's voice conceded. "Very well, I trust that you two haven't caused too much trouble."

Oh, he knew me too well.

Once Splinter moved off, and well away from the disaster scene, the Don on the screen moved to the door, and checked both ways. He turned around where he stood, and began whispering, "What do we do now?"

April whispered back, "Why don't we just tell Splinter?"

"Are you crazy?" he whispered back, "Master Splinter will flip! Maybe even forbid me from bringing unknown technology into the lair again!"

A groan from the other Don lying on the ground paused them in their conversation.

He sat up, rubbing his eyes, making it seem as though it were painful.

_It was painful… that _was _me…_

As I watched, the events of the rest of the video unfolded exactly how I remembered them, including me accusing the Don that now stood behind me of stealing my gear, and also making my way to the desk to watch the video.

I sat back, utterly dumbfounded.

_They're right. It's me that's the clone. The copy. The hologram._

Then as the reality sank in, an even more horrible thought crossed my mind.

_I no longer have any claim to this life at all. I've only been alive for about ten minutes. Not fifteen years. I don't have brothers. I have only memories, and I have only feelings. But they're not mine even. I can't stake claim to this life anymore. It's his. _

I'm sure my face became black with gloom, because both April and the real Donatello moved to see me.

"Are you okay?"

That was Donatello. He could probably 'hear' the thoughts ticking away in my own head, probably because he and I were identical in every way. He knew what I was thinking, I was sure of it.

Amazingly enough, April stopped having that scared look on her face. It became soft, and gentle, and had a concerned look. She was worried about me too.

"I… I just—" I petered off… I didn't know what to say. Didn't know what to think anymore. "I just don't know what to do with myself now is all…"

Donatello looked thoughtful for a moment, leaning against the desk, his fist balled up under his chin.

I could visibly see the light bulb come on after a few seconds.

He grinned at me. "I know exactly what to do!"

* * *

_Author's Note:_ Okay, here's where we might head into some choppy water. ::evil grin:: Just be prepared for lots of drama. And angst. Oh yes. Oh, and humor too. Believe me, I've got some things up my sleeves that'll have you rolling on the floor laughing! (At least, I'm fairly certain.) What didja think so far, eh?

* * *


	3. Doppleganger

_Author's note: Wow, without having to look, I'm really not sure how long this story has been without an update. Luckily I have more time on my hands to be able to update the unfinished stories here. Thanks you guys for being extremely patient people, and not giving up on me!  
_

_**~Chapter Three - Doppelganger~**_

My clone and I huddled over my notebook, with written plans that resembled a football play. We'd been scheming for almost an hour now, figuring out all the different scenarios we could think of, all the 'what-ifs' and the 'how-abouts.' I wanted this to be nothing less than spectacular, and it would be a shame to miss some bit of crucial information just at the critical point of the operation. The black device that had somehow given birth to another me sat in its leather case, which I had put inside a cupboard with a lock on it for safe keeping. For now, it remained in the background of my mind, my current project completely taking precedence. I had to admit, I felt as though I were talking to myself—which I was, sort of—but to actually hear my thoughts verbalized in another being was something that I found hard to comprehend. It felt, for lack of a better expression, as though I were having an out-of-body experience, seeing myself like that.

This had to be the most cool, the most awesome experience I've had so far!

I could hear April—who sat on a counter at the back of the lab, and who swung her feet back and forth, kicking the cupboard doors below in the process—as she gave a sigh.

"Um, guys," She tried. My clone and I turned to look back at her. "I don't mean to sound like Splinter or anything here, but I guess I'm just still confused. I mean, now that you have just been multiplied, with all the brilliant, cool, and exciting things that you two could be doing together, the best you could come up with is to pull a prank on Mike?" She looked between my clone and me with a perplexed look on her face.

I folded my arms, and thought for a second about how I could best answer her question.

"You gotta understand, April—" I cut myself off, as I realized that I had an echo. I looked over at my clone in surprise, and he was looking back at me, his arms folded the same way that I'd folded mine. We must have said and done the exact same thing at the exact same time.

We both burst out laughing, and my clone said, "Why don't you go for it?"

Nodding, I continued, "Like I said, you need to understand: Mikey has been known as the Primary Prank King for a good portion of our lives. You have no idea what kind of pranks he's pulled, and what I've been through. I've been dying to get him back for a long time now, and with the idea that I have in mind, I couldn't think of a way for it to work, unless of course I had two of me!"

My clone amended, "Besides, neither Raph nor Leo could possibly accomplish what I have in mind."

"Okay, I'll bite." April said, pushing herself off the counter, and walking toward us, a grin beginning to form on her face. "What exactly is it that you have in mind?"

I looked over at my clone once more. Our eyes met, and I recognized the same excitement in them that I was feeling at that precise moment. We both covered our 'football play' with our hands, and said together, "Oh, you'll see. You'll see."

* * *

Michelangelo was extremely excited. He had a new comic book burning a hole in his shelf, just waiting for him to read it. Master Splinter had insisted that although Michelangelo had received his internet order through April just that afternoon, he was to put away the comic book until after afternoon practice session. It had been torture waiting that long, and Master Splinter had knocked him over the head several times for his impatience and lack of focus. The dreaded practice was up, and Michelangelo practically vanished into thin air once sensei had announced the end of practicing. What Michelangelo had not expected was to see that Donatello was already there—how Donnie had beat him there was beyond him—walking out of Michelangelo's room, with something in his hand. Upon further inspection, Michelangelo realized that it was his comic book! For a second he was floored enough to just stand like a dope with his mouth hanging open as Donatello strolled by as though nothing sinister were taking place. The usually mild-mannered turtle even gave him a smile and a wink as he walked on by. After the few seconds of incredulity, Michelangelo came to his senses and let out a veritable howl.

"No _way_ are you reading that before _I _do, Don!" He initialized the warp drive engines attached to his feet and rocketed his way to his brother.

Donatello launched into a dead run, cradling the comic book against his chest like a football jocky and turned a corner. Michelangelo turned the corner, and although not far behind him, realized that Donatello had disappeared. He searched around the area for a moment, when movement on the other side of the lair caught his eye. It was up on the second level; Donatello waving the comic book in the air with a mischievous grin on his face.

_How the heck did he get up there so quickly?_ Michelangelo thought in desperation, as he bolted for the wrought-iron ladder system that the very turtle he chased had rigged up months ago. As soon as he had reached the second level, Donatello was nowhere to be seen. He quickly cast his eyes about and again out of the corner of his eye he saw Donatello dashing on the ground level again to another part of the lair near the entrance to the sewer tunnels, the coveted comic book still in his hands.

Michelangelo was flabbergasted, and starting to feel winded. The poor turtle flipped over the ledge, and landed on his feet, running toward where he'd seen Donatello disappear off to. He made it into the sewer tunnel and looked around when behind him he heard "Over here, Mikey."

He about-faced in a split second and ran toward the voice, seeing Donatello disappear into the dojo, and he knew that he had him cornered then. But just as he was about to dive into the dojo after his brother, he heard from above him "No, Mike, over here." He looked up and once again Donatello was on the second level of the lair.

And so it went, each time Michelangelo thought that he had his brother cornered it seemed he magically appeared somewhere else. He was baffled, out of breath, comic-book-less, and still Donatello evaded him. Eventually he sprawled out in the middle of the floor, his chest heaving, and the room spinning.

Raphael walked into the room, after having eaten lunch, and saw Michelangelo laying the floor and looking as though he had sprinted an entire marathon. He raised an eyebrow ridge. "Mikey, what're ya doin' in the middle of the floor?"

"Ask… Donnie…" he gasped.

The red-masked ruffian looked around, and said, "I don't see him."

"Exactly!"

Raphael rolled his eyes, and decided that he wanted some one-on-one time with his much abused punching bag, and he left Michelangelo to whatever weird thing it was that he was doing.

* * *

In the safety of my lab, my clone and I had a hearty laugh, and I told my clone, "That was _excellent_!"

After running Mikey ragged, we left the precious and still unread comic book (plus the extra one that I had borrowed to make it seem like we both held his new comic) on Mikey's bed. Once able to get back up on his feet, he would find that his comic was still in its plastic wrappings.

My clone was silent for a moment, after we'd congratulated ourselves, and then he said, "Want to put the video together for April?"

It had been one of the bargains that we had made with April. She would hold the comic book until the afternoon just before practice session, and for her silence we would make a video for her of the whole preceedings. My clone and I had strategically placed cameras in the lair for the best viewing, and then all we would have to do would be to edit the video, and burn it onto a dvd for her.

I definitely wanted to get to work, and so I went to the effort of getting all the cameras down. Michelangelo was nowhere to be found. I assumed that he'd gone to his room to sulk, and then discovered his comic book. I knew there would be hell to pay later for the prank, but it was worth it to see Mikey's face so confused and frustrated. He almost started looking like Raph after a while. Once I had taken the cameras down, I booked it back to the lab, and my clone and I set out to sending the video through firewire to the computer for some editing.

"April's gonna love this!" I said, excited.

"Not to mention it'll be a great way to rub it in Mikey's face afterwards." My clone added.

I nodded in sudden mock seriousness, and said with a fist in the air as though I were offering a toast, "For the sake of documenting history, adding insult to injury, and for those to come after us!"

Sitting at the computer, my clone was in the middle of splicing certain angles together during the moments when they would be the most hilarious. After my 'toast' he stopped clicking the mouse, and just stared into the computer screen. I raised my eyebrow at him.

"Hey, are you okay?"

He didn't move for a second, and then he rotated the seat in my swivel chair to look at me. "Those to come won't see this as being you and me. They will see this as you being amazing."

It took me a second to process what he was telling me. But I think I understood. In his shoes I would feel as though every part of my life belonged to someone else, and that I were just borrowing my existence. To think about this video as something someone else watched—someone who knew about us mutant turtles, like maybe April's kids or something—and to think that they would only be seeing me as the turtle that I had been cloned after, and not me, that would be depressing. I nodded at my clone.

I gave a start. I had been thinking of him as 'my clone' instead of by Donatello… obviously that felt weird. But that meant that I didn't know what to call him, so I called him by what he was, instead of his name. No wonder he felt as though his life were borrowed. I couldn't even call him his name, because it was mine! We obviously had to work through a few things. This couldn't be easy for him. I wouldn't take it very well either! Obviously…

He had gone back to clicking the spliced video clips back together, and looked like he didn't really want to talk about it. I promised myself that later we'd hash out the details and make a plan. I needed to think about what I would say a little bit more.

* * *

I had snuck my clone into my room at the end of the day. I didn't want to add insult to injury by making him sleep in the lab. I made a kind of camouflage curtain with some boxes and things to hide the makeshift bed that he was sleeping in. We both had agreed that he needed to stay hidden. After all, tomorrow we would be working on the device and figure out how it works, and who made it. We didn't want Master Splinter to decide that it was something he didn't want us to be working on. Especially now that I had someone I could work with, after all. We'd already given the dvd of the prank to April, who told us she was going to take it home and laugh herself silly. The end of the day came very quickly.

As we lay in the darkness, I silently contemplated how I would start the conversation I wanted to have with my clone. Eventually, I said, "You don't want to be different, but you want to be you."

After a second he responded, "Yeah."

"I am just assuming, but since technically I am you, and since I can imagine being in your shoes, I would be thinking this: I no longer have claim on this life because I wouldn't want to usurp the one I'd been cloned after. I'd feel that I'd have to change and be someone different, because there is really only one Donatello."

"Yeah," my clone said morosely.

I shook my head in the darkness, "But you have no less a right to be who you are than I do. You are a living person, clone or no. It's not like Master Splinter and the others are going to demand that you leave. You're a mutant turtle after all. And you would be in as much danger as any one of us if you were to be discovered. I don't see why we couldn't just have you stay, and allow you be you. We could work on our projects together, and get things done twice as fast! We would be able to put out fires for each other, and continue learning ninjitsu together. We'd be like twins!" I felt excited now, and I found that I had propped myself up on my elbow, looking in his general direction in the dark.

"Yeah, but Donnie…" he trailed off. "Man, it feels weird to call you that."

I nodded and said, "Yeah, I've been wondering what I should be calling you too…"

He continued, "It's one thing to be a twin, but another completely different thing to be a clone. I mean, besides the fact that you and I share memories up until I was cloned, and how I feel like that is me, what about the others? Master Splinter and the others won't have any way to tell us apart. We have the same name… unless one of us chooses to be called something different, and that someone would probably be me, since I'm the clone. What if Raph and Leo don't trust me? Mikey will definitely trust me, that's just who he is. But you know that Raph at least will be reserved about me."

"They'll get over it. You know they will." I thought for a moment, and then asked him, "You remember how we used to wish that we could be someone different? How we wanted to have more time to learn an instrument, or to beat Mikey's high score at video games, or just have more time to do things that I wanted to do with my gadgets, or devote more time to ninjitsu like Leo? That's an option for you now."

I could almost feel my clone nod. "I know. I know what you're trying to do for me—I'd do the same in your shoes. But it just… _hurts_ to have to think about this at all. It's like someone going into hiding and having to change their name and move and be someone completely different. I'm sure I can change, and I am sure that I'll get used to it. But it's going to take time, and I'll have to think about it a little."

"Okay."

I really felt for the guy. Not just because he was my clone, but because he was a clone and unsure of his place in the world. That would be confusing and frustrating for anyone. But I think I know what I would choose to do about the whole looking identical in every way thing. I would change my bandana color to—

"Yellow." My clone suddenly said, interrupting my train of thought.

"Huh?"

"I'm going to change my bandana color to yellow. It's complimentary to purple."

I smiled and said, "You know, I was just thinking that…"


	4. Surprise

_Author's Note: Yay this chapter did not take me as long! I must be getting my mojo back. Anyway, enjoy. Also, please let me know where I can improve. I am hoping that you will tell me what you liked about my chapter, and also mention the things you would like to see an improvement on. Thanks guys!_

_**~Chapter Four – Surprise~**_

I sat stretching out my arms and leg in a corner of the dojo after morning practice session. I had to wonder, as we sparred with each other, what my clone thought of not being here. He would have felt ousted; from his point of view he had never missed practice unless he was sick or injured, and then for reasons horribly out of his control, he was forced to sit on the sidelines. All of this probably only made him feel even more like a stranger in his own home, especially since he had to sneak around the lair to avoid being seen by our brothers and Father. There wasn't anything we could do about it, though; we had both agreed that his remaining hidden would be essential if we ever had hopes of continuing our work on the project. Once Master Splinter found out what had happened, he was sure to ban our work on the device.

Breakfast after practice would be tricky though. I was tempted swipe some food from the kitchen, like I sometimes do, and bring it back to the safety of the lab where my clone and I could eat it without fear of being discovered by our family. However before practice my clone had mentioned how he was starving. We both knew it was unusual for my stomach—cloned or otherwise—to be remarkably demanding, and we chalked it up to my clone's new body still getting into the rhythm of existing. It would take more food to satisfy his hunger than just the box of cereal or slice of toast I would normally have.

Our plan? Tag team it.

Michelangelo was cooking eggs, and as it turned out we had orange juice for once—quite the treat. I poured myself a glass and decided that I wanted to have some toast with my eggs. Since the eggs were nearly done, and I had a hungry clone to feed, I made twice as many slices as I normally would. This got the attention of Raphael who stood right behind me impatiently waiting his turn for the toaster.

"Geez Don, ya hungry or what?"

I ducked my head to hide a quick grin, and said, "Yeah, I'm starved."

Once the eggs were finished, I loaded up my plate and began wolfing down my food and guzzling my juice, attempting to eat as much food as possible before my clone gave the signal. I felt eyes on me.

"Planning on surviving an apocalypse?" That was Leo.

I ducked my head and mumbled through my food, "No, just hungry."

Michelangelo looked at me strangely too, but for a different reason altogether. He eventually asked me, "How did you do it, Don?"

To this I couldn't help but grin. "Do what?" I feigned innocence.

"Don't give me that innocent look. You know exactly what I'm talking about, Donnie-the-comic-book-snatcher."

"I have no idea what you're talking about." I ate some more toast and eggs,

"Yes you do, Don. And don't deny it."

I smiled and said, "Well. I'll tell ya, Mikey. I eat a good breakfast every day. That's how."

Michelangelo frowned.

Just then, everyone heard a loud _pop_ sound come from the direction of the lab, along with the tinkling of crashing glass on the stone floor. We all craned our heads to see out of the kitchen and toward the lab. A grey smoke began wafting out from underneath the door. The signal.

"Experiment gone wrong I see," Leonardo chuckled, and a chorus of snickers from the rest of my brothers joined him. This had happened many times in the past, and they found it hilarious.

I stood up, glaring at them in mock severity, and said, "Be right back. No one touch my food."

With that I left the kitchen, banking into the lab where my clone was anxiously awaiting my arrival. He had simulated a mini-explosion to create the impression that a few unstable chemicals had somehow suddenly reacted with each other in some non-existent experiment I was supposedly conducting. What he really did was pop a balloon, break a glass beaker on the floor, and set off a ninja smoke pellet by the door. I motioned toward the kitchen, and said, "It's all yours."

Quickly my clone left, and although I tried to distract myself by cleaning up the broken glass and bits of balloon, I felt somewhat on pins and needles. It was an unsubstantiated worry, of course; he had my wit and memories after all. It's not like he would act weird. He _was_ essentiallyme, and I felt confident that no one would be able to tell the difference, not even Master Splinter. I had even given him my old gear—knee pads, belt, mask, elbow pads, and everything he needed to look exactly like me—he even had all my scars. Still, I felt somewhat anxious for whatever reason.

In the meantime I took down the bright leather case with its gleaming gold latches and sat it on my workbench, and I opened it up. This was about the time when my clone came back from breakfast.

He walked in through the lab door, closing it behind him, and leaning against it for support.

"You okay?" I asked him.

"Man, that was a weird experience. I mean, I felt like me, but then I knew that I am a clone, and for some weird reason my mind kept playing tricks on me—I kept feeling like Master Splinter was watching me more closely than usual, or that everyone kept giving me strange looks. I was sweating bullets back there!"

I laughed and said, "It's probably because of our prank yesterday. Michelangelo was pestering me about it while I was eating, and they were probably curious as to what we were talking about."

My clone nodded and smiled, "Yeah, that's probably it."

Together, we turned to the lab table.

The black, round object sat in its case as though it were something innocent. But both my clone and I knew better.

I had made protective gear for when I was working on large projects—like the battle-shell, for instance—for when I needed to weld something. I had made a face protection mask, heavy fire-retardant gloves especially designed for a three-fingered turtle, and a long-sleeved jacket made with a heavy fire-retardant material. Sadly, I only had one of those outfits, but my clone and I decided that one of us would manipulate the object, while the other one wrote down any data, and retrieved materials. The one manipulating the device would wear the protective gear to prevent any skin-to-device contact.

My clone had the protective gear on, and had the device in his hands, examining the object.

"You know, this device has an alien element to it." He commented to me. I was currently at the computer, creating a spreadsheet for the information we would be collecting from our course of investigation today.

Nodding I said, "Yeah, it's such a small device, and yet it produced a clone. Now, if that's not at least partly alien tech, then I don't know what is."

"If I were the kind to bet on anything, it would be that some humans got their hands on alien technology—could have even been Triceraton or Utrom technology—and made an alien/human technology hybrid."

"The fun part is figuring out _how_ the device actually made you out of thin air."

"Well, let's get to it."

It took the better part of the afternoon—before I was whisked away to practice again—to collect data on even what the porous and light material which housed the internal workings was. We subjected it to different stimuli. Water. Heat. UV light. Nothing seemed to make it react the way that it had to coming into contact with me. My clone and I were just about ready to subject it to the extreme heat of the soldering torch when we both had an idea.

"Organic material!" We both shouted in unison. Then we started talking all over each other.

"It reacted to me—"

"Which means it will react to _organic _matter!"

"And all we'll have to do is find out—"

"If it reacts to dead organic material—"

"Because we already know it reacts to living organic material."

"And it probably doesn't react to bacteria or similar organisms…"

"Yeah, because it would be constantly active and cloning them…"

"Besides it would be stupid to make a device that cloned bacteria."

"Donatello?"

The voice made both of us jump. It was Master Splinter! He never entered the lab, but I could tell he was standing just on the outside of the door.

"Y-yes sensei?" I called out. My clone had frozen.

"You seem to be spending much of your time in your research lab lately. May I know what you are doing?"

Oh, that father's intuition of his must be sounding about a million alarm bells in his mind. What would I tell him? 'No, he _couldn't_ know what I was doing?' He's my _father_ for crying out loud, he would be suspicious about that answer!

Suddenly my clone decided to answer, "It's a surprise sensei!"

I looked over at him. He looked and me and sheepishly grinned, shrugging his shoulders. He whispered, "Well, it _will_ be quite a surprise."

Master Splinter didn't respond for a moment, and then he said, "Very well, Donatello. I am looking forward to your surprise."

Both my clone and I deflated. What were we gonna do? I suddenly had the very strong impression that Master Splinter would be very disappointed that I had kept this from him, and violated his trust. I would have to earn his trust back, which would unfortunately take time. I hated disappointing my father.

"Oh man," my clone said.

"You got that right. What're we gonna do?"

My clone paused for a moment and pondered. After a second or so, he said, "We still don't really know why this device was tossed in the trash. After all, it seems fully functional, and really expensive. What if there was a problem with the clones it created? We just don't know enough about it to say everything is well and good. I mean, what if there is some sort of awful degeneration process that happens after a while to the clones it creates, and they eventually die?"

My eyes opened wide. "Die?"

My clone nodded, and then looked down at his hands, still holding the black device with the forceps. "Yeah… I couldn't really sleep much last night. I kept going over in my mind any possible reason for the device to have been just chucked in the garbage. That was one of the possibilities I thought of. After all, scientists are still only scratching the surface with cloning technology, and one of the problems they are running into is that the clone never survives very long. Add that to the idea that this could possibly be alien tech…"

"Which could only add further confusion to the mess…"

That _was_ an awful thought, and one that would keep me up at night if I were the clone. I mean, to suddenly have your life ripped from you, only to come upon the startling discovery that your life—brand new and turned upside down as it was—would be taken from you just because of an error in the device that created you; that would set me on edge for sure.

I rubbed my head, and then turned to my clone. "I think Master Splinter would see that _that_ is an important reason to keep working on the device. Don't you? You have the right to live! Master Splinter would see that. It could be a potentially dangerous thing to your life if we don't continue to work on the device."

My clone nodded.

I nodded.

We looked at each other.

"So, who's going to tell him?"

* * *

We settled on both of us telling him at the same time. Get right to the point, and explain why we had to keep working on the device, and then let the chips fall where they might.

I was wringing my hands nervously, about to step out of my lab to find Master Splinter, and tell him the big secret.

"Okay, I can do this…" I said, trying to pump myself up.

My clone was massaging my shoulders like a boxing coach for his main player in the corner of the ring, and running through the scenarios. "Okay, so we'll have a chair ready for him to sit on in case he feels faint, and we'll just explain everything from the beginning. It should be okay."

I let out a deep breath, and said, "Okay, here I go."

With the way my heart was pumping, I was somewhat regretting my decision to eat as much as I had. I was hoping my breakfast wouldn't make a return appearance. Especially because I had orange juice. We hardly _ever_ get orange juice.

Master Splinter was inside his room, the door slightly ajar. I could see that he was on a tatami mat, in meditation. Uh oh, that meant Master Splinter was worried about something. And I could guess the reason for his preoccupation.

Taking a quick breath, I knocked lightly on the partially open door, and called softly, "Master Splinter?"

Master Splinter's eyes opened, and he turned his head toward me. "Yes, Donatello?"

_Ho boy…_ I thought.

"Well, you see… I have something you need to see."

Master Splinter's eyes brightened, and he said, "Oh, is it your surprise you wish to share with me?"

I ducked my head, "Yes… sort of."

Standing, and taking up his walking stick in his hand, he said, "I suppose the 'sort of' surprise is in your lab?"

I nodded, and turned to lead the way. Master Splinter's response indicated that he already knew something was up—which wasn't surprising at all. I wasn't sure how, but Master Splinter seemed to know _every time_ something was up. It almost felt as though he had eyes in the back of his head. Knowing that Master Splinter had already steeled himself for something out of the ordinary made me feel a little better about springing a clone of me on him.

Once we'd reached the lab, I put my hand on the doorknob, and took a deep breath. Turning to Master Splinter before I opened the door, I said, "Okay Master Splinter, what I am about to show you happened due to an accident, not because I planned it."

Master Splinter lifted a concerned eyebrow.

_Uh oh…_ I thought, _it might be worse than I thought. Okay, don't panic. Deep breath…_

Opening the door, I allowed Splinter inside with me, and shut the door again, to block the view of any potentially nosey brothers.

My clone stood in the middle of the lab, hands at his sides, and face stoic. I wasn't the only one terrified of what Master Splinter would say. As soon as the aged rat laid eyes on my clone, he lifted his bushy eyebrows in surprise, and then looked at me. Then he looked at my clone again.

He closed his eyes, and I could practically hear him thinking at me 'Oh Donatello, what kind of mess have you gotten yourself into?' What he said was, "Explain."

My clone and I looked at each other. My clone shrugged, and I looked back at sensei. I launched into my explanation, starting at the very beginning with me finding the device, and describing the devastating consequences it brought with it. I described how I hid my clone, and how he had my memories, how his life was upside down because of them, and how he wanted to be accepted by everyone here. I finished with telling Master Splinter that because we didn't know exactly how it was my clone came into being—other than that it was caused by the device which had come into contact with me—and because of that, we could be faced with a whole bunch of unanswered questions, one of which would be how long my clone had to live, and would he suffer any bodily degradation, and that all these questions could be answered with more investigation into the device and the company that made it.

I finished up with, "I am sorry I hid all this from you. In fact, I was going to wait longer, but it just didn't feel right. The reason I would have waited is because I was afraid you would tell me to stop working on learning more about the device because of what it does. But sensei, it could potentially be essential to my clone's survival that we learn as much as we can about this device."

Master Splinter had not budged an inch during my explanation. In fact, he hardly even blinked. Now that I had finished my monologue, the wise rat remained silent for a minute. Both my clone and I had better sense than to say anything while we waited for him to pass judgment.

Eventually Master Splinter sighed, and said, "Donatello, you are a highly inquisitive turtle who wants to know more about everything, which is an admirable quality. But I hope now you can see why I forbid that you bring the unknown into our home." He looked at my clone, and then he looked back at me. "You have given birth to new life, which makes you in a way akin to a parent responsible for their child. I expect that you will be responsible for your clone, and make sure you do not create another."

I nodded, feeling strangely in agreement with what he was saying. It felt weird, but I sort of did feel responsible for my clone—protective of him in a way that I only felt over my gadgets and creations and my family, only more so.

Master Splinter continued. "As for this…device, I do not feel comfortable with the idea of you continuing your work with it."

I opened my mouth to argue, but a raised hand from Master Splinter silenced me.

"However," he said, "The issues you have raised are compelling and logical. I will allow you to continue your work on the object, but only if you can guarantee that there will be no more accidents, and that you will be forthcoming about all your future issues regarding this and any other project." He looked at me expectantly.

I nodded, "I promise."

He turned to my clone. "And as you are the exact clone of my son sharing even his memories and personality, I need you to make this same promise before I will give you my blessing to continue your work on the device."

My clone nodded as well, and said "I promise."

"Very well," Master Splinter said, "You may continue to work on the device."

My clone and I looked at each other with triumph in our eyes. We turned to look back at Master Splinter. He wasn't done. He was looking straight at my clone.

"As for you, I wish to spend one-on-one time with you regularly. Is that understood?"

"Yes Master Splinter." My clone responded. He had question marks written all over his face. I'm sure I did too. Why did Master Splinter want one-on-one time with my clone? What would he do with him? Was he going to have private practice sessions with him? Would it be something else?

"Very good," Master Splinter said, "Then I expect you to join me in my quarters after breakfast tomorrow."

My clone nodded.

"And you are very welcome to be here." Master Splinter added, "I look forward to your addition to our family."

For the first time in a while, my clone smiled. "Thank you," he said.

Turning back to me, Master Splinter said, "Donatello, I believe you have too much time on your hands—clearly indicated by this incident. Your punishment will be a detail cleaning of the lair, starting with the dojo. You are forbidden from working on that device until you have completed your assignment. Also, you are grounded from the dump for a month. Understood?"

Oh I knew it. I knew that 'other shoe' was going to drop. I could feel it in my bones. Dejectedly I said, "Hai sensei."

Nodding in satisfaction, Master Splinter walked out of the lab, the walking stick clicking as he moved.

I let out a breath. "Somehow I knew I wasn't going to get out of this without some sort of punishment."

My clone nodded, "How is it that when he pronounces the punishment, he makes you feel like it's the most logical consequence? It's like if he asked me what our punishment should be, I would have chosen that exact same thing."

"It's because Master Splinter has the power to control minds." I said

My clone leaned against the side of the lab table. "Do you think he meant that the both of us are to clean the lair?"

"As much as I want to say yes, I think that particular punishment was meant just for me."

My clone's eyes started gleaming with mischievous energy. "So that means only _you_ need to stay away from the device until you've done your assignment. He never said anything about _me_ staying away from the device."

I looked at him, my mouth wide open. "You, my friend, are a genius!"

He brushed off a shoulder in 'cool-guy' style. "I know."


End file.
